La Prime pour l'emploi constitue-t-elle un instrument de soutien aux bas revenus ?

At the time of its creation in 2001 the PPE was assumed both to strengthen incentives to work for low-skilled people and to redistribute money to the lower tie of the income distribution. We here assess how the specific increase in the level of the PPE in 2003 for part-time workers allowed to reach this second objective. We compare this reform with two alternative scenarios that consist in a uniform increase in PPE rates and in a specific bonus for families with children aged 0 to 6: indeed these families typically endure large costs when the mother takes a job. However these different scenarios have a moderate impact on the lower tie of the income distribution, that suffers from high unemployment rates and thus cannot benefit from the PPE.